Yesterday's Weapons Forums

(moved from the old YW site)

The detachment I was assigned to in Vietnam was the "D" in "HHD", that
is, Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment. The detachment is basically the housekeeping unit for the headquarters personnel. My duty was as the detachment clerk most of the tour and a half I was there. This was a good assignment, as a detachment clerk for 44 officers and men is a lot less work than being a company clerk for 250 to 400 officers and men (I have done that too).

The detachment and headquarters people are all basically mixed together for housekeeping purposes, so as detachment clerk I had any number of vehicles to drive from time to time. The vehicles were assigned by section, but there was some interchangeability. Most of the time, we drove M151 series quarter ton vehicles, known to civilians as "jeeps". We also drove old Dodge M37 3/4 ton trucks and when really desperate, we would drive a 2 1/2 ton "deuce and a half" army truck. I didn't drive 5 tons until I got back and went into the National Guard. I remember thinking, "Oh, I hated driving those 'deuce and a halfs' and now this thing is bigger". Well, the 5 tons are actually easier to drive. They are a little bigger but they have POWER STEERING, even the old M54's.

I can see this post is getting too long already. Round about 1971, my
friend Mark R was the battalion legal clerk. He was involved in a big drug-dealing case that had taken place in our battalion, and then his time came to go home and he was gone. After he had been gone a couple of
months, the Army decided they needed him back in Vietnam as a witness. They sent him a piece of paper called "invitational travel orders" asking him to come back to Vietnam from Virginia for the trial, all expenses paid. Since he wasn't doing anything else, he accepted the "invitation".

When Mark R got back to Vietnam, we provided transportation for him
around Long Binh post, and when it was time for him to go home, he asked me to give him a ride to Tan Son Nhut airport in Saigon. We took the jeep belonging to the G-1 (Admin) section, and off we went. We didn't get too far when Mark R looked down at the small instrument panel and said, "Look, the oil gauge is real low". The jeep was running fine, and so be both concluded that the gauge reading must be the result of "typically defective army equipment." When we wheeled up to the air terminal, about 15 miles away or better, I decided to open the hood and pull the dipstick, just to take a look. Glory be, there was no oil on the stick. Of course, we never carried oil cans in the jeep as they would have gotten stolen (no pioneer tools, gas can, and sometimes no spare tire either for the same reason or because it had already been stolen).

At this point, I didn't figure I was in a pickle yet because I planned on getting some oil before heading back to Long Binh. Plus, the vehicle was running fine. I dropped Mark R off and drove over to a nearby army Headquarters called USAHAC, but since it was after 1700 hours by now, the gates were locked. Next, I figured I could buy some oil from one of the kids or mamasans that sold gasoline and oil in open glass bottles right along the roadway. By this time, it was getting dark and all the roadside vendors had wisely vanished from their day-light places of business. I should also mention that we had goofed around in town at Mark R's hotel and so forth before going out to the air terminal. At that time, I didn't figure on the "oil problem." Now I was starting to worry some.

Of course, I was only 20 or 21 years old then, so I didn't have the same thought processes that I have now. Now, if I discovered my vehicle had no oil in it, I wouldn't drive it another foot. What I did know even then was that after dark, being on a Vietnam road (even in the greater Saigon headquarters area), unarmed and alone was not the best place to be. I had already wasted enough time and it was getting darker. I figured all I could do was head on back and see how it went.

Yes, I said unarmed. At this stage in the war, rear area troops in and around Saigon did normally carry weapons. Later in my tour, I wised up and got my own Smith & Wesson revolver (which I still have) so as to always have a weapon along on one of these forays.

I didn't get very far before the engine in the jeep started missing and cutting out. So I wound it up as fast as I could get it to go, and then
the engine quit. Now I'm thinking, "Oh man, what do I do now?" I let the jeep roll along the road until it coasted down to under 10 miles per hour. Just for the heck of it, I put it back in gear, let out the clutch, and
doggoned if the engine didn't start up again, coughing and sputtering. Now, I raced it back up as fast as I could again until it quit and then coasted back along without power. Then I repeated the clutch starting again, and so on, and I did this for the better part of ten miles until I rolled back into our motor pool. Words cannot describe how glad I was to be back and not stuck out on the road by myself in the dark. If that had happened, even if I had been able to make it back by hitching a ride or something (and hadn't gotten jumped), the jeep would have been gone. The Army can be funny about their equipment; sometimes when you lose it, they make you pay for it.

The next day, we pushed the jeep up onto a lube rack and removed the oil
pan drain plug. Only a very small amount of oil ran out, that oil that the
pump pick-up screen wouldn't suck up. We filled the crankcase with fresh oil, started it up and drove it off the rack. The engine ran fine and wasn't noisy, so we didn't do anything more to it.

I never liked the M151 series "jeeps" very much. They had this problem of rolling over if you got careless in one, but most of that was driver
stupidity. What I didn't like about them was that transmissions and transfers and especially rear differentials seemed not to last all that long. I can't complain about the engines, though. The little 4 cylinder was
made by Continental Engine Corp, same guys that make small airplane
engines. They did a good job of that one I drove without oil to go so far and get me home. I don't think any civilian Ford or Chevy engine would have lasted that long without oil.

Engine oil is a coolant to some degree, in addition to its primary
function of lubricant. In the case of this jeep engine, I think it would quit
running because it heated up to the point of vaporizing the fuel. Rolling along with the engine off for a while must have cooled it just enough to get it going again for a while. Maybe if it had kept running straight, it would have burned the bearings out and melted the pistons.